We had not seen each other since our post-Halloween analysis/walk, so Donna and I met up for dinner at the best Thai place in the world, site of the sketchy Halloween party. We walked down from my place and picked up our conversation, like we always do, with ease and good will. Dinner was lovely, and our waiter, who was dressed as Bruno for the party, came over and thanked us for coming. I should say he thanked Donna for coming because I don’t think he knows who I am still. He complimented Donna on her outfit and pointed out that she was in the video posted on their Facebook site. He then turned to me to compliment me on my James Bond costume. Donna and I looked at each other and tried not to laugh. I think he was thinking of another guy there who was in a tuxedo. I can understand his confusion: it’s hard to tell a suave, handsome, debonair secret agent from a middle-aged, literature-professor, blogging beeyatch.

Walking home, Donna was in the throes of a diatribe on the harm done to us all by the seasonal time change. She is angry that she gets home and doesn’t have time to let her cats outside before it gets dark (darkness=coyotes=death in Coolville). I didn’t have the heart to tell her that actually we had just ended Daylight Savings Time, and actually we were now in standard time, so what she was really arguing for was a kind of permanent Daylight Savings Time, which kind of went against her whole point of messing with time. She was just so into it I didn’t want to stop her. At the corner where the Coolville Police Department resides, we began crossing with the light in the crosswalk when a Coolville Police SUV came barreling from the opposite direction making a left turn into our crosswalk. He projected his Urban Assault Vehicle right into the crosswalk like a bullet. Donna was like a squirrel crossing the road: she dropped her nuts, squealed, and ran back to the curb. I, on the other hand, stood my ground until the clueless cop swerved slightly and screeched to a stop about a foot from me. Donna says that it was six inches, but she was rather far away, having left me to die at the hands of Coolville PD. He had his window down, but I could have seen him regardless because his face looked like the moon in the dead of night. I simply took my hands out of my pockets (yes, I know) and gave him the New York shrug that says wtf? Had I been quicker on the draw, I would have conjured Ratso Rizzo and yelled “I’m walkin’ here; I’m walkin’ here.” Mumbling like the perp that he was, he says something like “I’m sorry. I was watching that guy.” He nods to the pedestrian who was crossing the other way, a man of Asian descent who looked confused and slightly afraid. The cop made it sound like he was going to cut this guy off and arrest him or some other macho bullshit. But he knew he was made, and I turned back at him and gave him my prison stare. After leaving my arms in the wtf? position for a moment, I shook my head, and kept walking.

Now Donna is like “WTF? Aristaeus?!!!!! Do you want to die? You talk about dying on a walk, but you taunt death in a cross-walk next to the Coolville Police Station?” I am almost as stunned by her response as I am the near-death experience I have just had. She’s upset. I want to say “you dropped your nuts, little squirrel,” but I fear for my life. Now she can’t stop talking about what just happened. I think about saying “Screw Daylight Savings Time” to get her off the subject, but that’s not going to happen no matter what I say. Bella Donna is processing all this and goes from anger (“Are you taunting death?”) to confusion (“Why didn’t you move?”) to embarrassment (“I left you, didn’t I?”) to laughter (“Did you see the cop’s face?”). We talk all the way home, and she makes a point to come in and tell Robby that we almost died. What do you mean “we” white woman?

As she passes through her states of emotion, I seriously consider her point. Why didn’t I react? First of all, I know I wasn’t frozen up. I was processing at some level. Somewhere I recognized that it was a police car, and I think I also recognized we were near a police station. For reasons that I cannot explain here, the Coolville Police Station at that location will always bring back memories for me, and I never pass it without recalling them. Also, I think I knew that I still had time to jump back or even up to avoid or soften the impact. Maybe I just wanted to be James Bond and be cool at all times. I remember literally stopping a taxi in Istanbul because he was trying to push me out of the way in that insane, wonderful way drivers have there. I simply stood in front of him with my hands on his hood to let him know it wasn’t going to happen. I think he even nodded at me as if to say he understood I was not going to be bullied.

Donna’s reaction and words did give me pause, and I’ve been thinking about them ever since. Why didn’t I jump back or drop my nuts and run like Donna? I think it’s a combination of two things. First, I’m really good at reading traffic and projecting what will happen in time. Living in Atlanta and Boston and driving in London, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have given me some skills in that regard, and I trust my instincts. Secondly, and related to the first, I’m not afraid of much. I can hear Dwight Yoakum’s creepy voice in my head as Doyle Hargraves in Sling Blade saying “I ain’t skeered of shit.” Well, I ain’t. There’s a confidence that comes from surviving severe loss that permeates your life and applies to nearly everything. I really ain’t skeered of shit, and while I am not reckless, I’m also not going to be afraid of life. Accordingly, I’ve roamed the streets of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Memphis, London, Budapest, Berlin, Istanbul and others late at night and in some sketchy places, not to test fate but also not to fear. Maybe I’m making too much of all this, but if I am, it’s Donna’s fault. Donna the squirrel.

We did laugh at the cop. I don’t have much of a problem with cops in general, but I have major problems with Coolville cops. On a good day, they’re idiots; on a bad day, they’re criminally idiotic. I tell Donna that if I had been hit and survived, I would sue and own the city of Coolville. If I did, I would appoint Mathias, a six-foot-two, two-hundred-fifty pound, tattooed and pierced, Finnish, evangelical Christian, as my chief of police. I suppose I could still sue the city of Coolville for this assault without battery by an idiot with a badge, but in the end he’s just a guy who made a mistake and fortunately nothing bad happened other than Donna dropped her nuts. I will, therefore, not sue them. So to all you Coolville cops out there: you’re assholes and you’re welcome.